American begins hunger strike at quarantine

JAKARTA (JP): Jack Gilbert West, an American quarantined for allegedly misusing his visa and possessing obscene photographs, started yesterday his hunger strike protesting his arrest and incarceration.

"I'll start my hunger strike beginning today until I die here," the 51-year-old man told The Jakarta Post by telephone from West Jakarta Immigration's Quarantine yesterday.

"I no longer have any hope that the American embassy here could do something to help extradite me," said West, adding the embassy had even rejected his application for repatriation funds.

His last meeting with someone from the embassy was two weeks ago, he said.

Earlier, West sent a letter to the Post saying he would start his hunger strike immediately after the letter was published. Some of his claims, not the letter, were published yesterday.

"If the U.S. government won't loan me the funds to go home, then they can ship my corpse home," he said in the two-page, typewritten letter he sent from Quarantine in Kalideres, West Jakarta, where he has been in detention since Feb. 4.

During the telephone-interview yesterday, West denied all the allegations made by the police and immigration officers.

"It's a lie. The pictures are my personal collection I brought from the States and I'm not teaching anybody anywhere here," he said.

West said the charges against him were baseless.

"If the immigration officers accused me of taking the pictures by myself could they tell me where I could process the films here?" he asked.

"If they charged me with teaching without proper documentation, could they tell me where I was teaching and show me the students?"

West said his income came from a business in the States.

Immigration officer Zaiman Nurmatias said West was arrested on Jan. 31 after military officers found him, with his pornographic photos, walking around the National Monument park. Later, police learned he had worked as an English teacher without a legitimate visa.

"West will be deported shortly after his ticket is ready," said Zaiman, director for control and law enforcement on immigration affairs, last week.

The officer did not say who would pay for the ticket.

But according to West, the embassy has been unofficially informed that Indonesia wants to expel him, to the U.S., at his expense.

West said he had no funds and had asked his wife to apply for American repatriation funds from the embassy so that he could leave his small cell immediately.

"But the embassy ignored my application," he said.

Family

West's decision to start a hunger strike shocked his wife. Liza.

"Oh, my God. What's he going to do?" said Liza.

"He should have known what I'm doing outside here is to find ways so he could be released or extradited soon," she said.

Liza said she was still unable to get a firm answer from the government on her husband's fate.

"Even to meet him at the quarantine, I have significant problems," she said.

But Liza knew why her husband decided to hunger strike.

"He's in a serious depression, particularly due to the absence of his government's help," she said.

West said the reluctance of U.S. authorities to do him a favor was probably due to his poor relations with the US government in the past.

He admitted to burning the U.S. flag in Singapore to protest the unfavorable steps taken by the American government toward him following his divorce from his wife in the States.

The embassy might judge his case based on previous experience, West said.

"Therefore, I do not hope for any help from the embassy anymore and have decided to start my hunger strike in this cell."

West said the small cell he shared with six other foreigners was in bad condition. They were given the bare minimum to eat and contacting outsiders was almost impossible.

West and Liza have two children; Endy, 6, and Rossa, 5.

The news that her father had started hunger striking didn't faze Rossa.

"I don't care because he didn't like to give me good chocolates," she said. (bsr)